Origins of Musical Theory
Examples of early Chinese and Japanese pitches .
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During the 1100's, Chinese music and instruments were introduced to the Japanese, and developed separately into Japanese music.
Ryo & Risto Scales were brought to Japan during the Heian period(794-1185 CE). Each scale had 5 pitches/notes, named Gong Shang Jue Zhi Yu and returning back to Gong. The main difference in these scales in Japan and China was that while the Chinese would attribute specific pitches with the names Gong, Shang, Jue etc1, Japanese music would simply have the first note in any scale become Gong2. |
Evolution of Japanese Musical Theory
Japanese music began to really evolve with Koizumi's Tetrachord theory, birthed by Fumio Koizumi, who created a scale based around perfect fourths (or P4's), using to stabled outlining tones and one unstable intermediate tone, which is the repeated again to create one of four different scales: The Min-Yo, Miyako-bushi, Ristu or Ryu-kyu scales.
The Four Major Scales
Using the Western names of notes for the sake of clarity, these are the four main scales of Japanese music, with their variants on the right.